Why is the National Guard still in D.C.?; Gen. Flynn’s brother to head Army Pacific Command

Analysis by WorldTribune Staff, January 27, 2021

At least 5,000 armed National Guard troops will remain in Washington, D.C. through the end of March, reports say. Why?

A memo, signed by D.C. National Guard chief Maj. Gen. William Walker and dated Jan. 25, orders troops to remain on duty at least through the end of March “in continued support of District and Federal civil authorities during anticipated First Amendment demonstrations and Civil Disturbance in the District of Columbia.”

Virginia National Guard Airmen assigned to the 192nd Security Forces Squadron, 192nd Mission Support Group, 192nd Wing help to secure the grounds near the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 13. / U.S. Air National Guard photo by Staff Sgt. Bryan Myhr)

The memo was obtained by Politico. But it does not satisfy the curiosity for large swathes of the population that no longer believes the media and have been shut off from other sources of information by their Social Media minders at Google, Facebook, Twitter, etc.

The upcoming impeachment trial in the Senate is reportedly considered one of those “civil disturbance” concerns. Democrats have spent millions in taxpayer dollars in pursuing two impeachment convictions in the Senate, and a series of investigations since 2016 that have finally evicted a populist president from the White House.

Many reports in the alternative media suggest that there is anger among the 74 million Americans who voted for President Donald Trump  after being dismissed with contempt by the “ruling class” in Washington, D.C. But are they violent in the same way as the Antifa and Marxist Black Lives Matter mobs that have wrecked businesses and livelihoods all across the nation and continue their rampage in Portland even now?

No, they are not, although the FBI is going after every demonstrator who entered the Capitol on Jan. 6. There have been conflicting reports about who was responsible for destructive behavior in the “People’s House”. Others wandering around there were under the impression they had been invited inside.

There are currently 13,000 National Guard troops in D.C., but that will be decreased to 7,000 by the end of this week, Chief of the National Guard Bureau, Army Gen. Daniel Hokanson, said at a Department of Defense news conference on Monday. The troops who remain will assist specific agencies with security.

Four agencies have requested the National Guard to provide support, and all those requests have been approved, allocating 600 troops to assist the U.S. Secret Service and 550 to help D.C. police, Acting Army Secretary John E. Whitley said.

Another 500 troops will support Park Police, and Whitley said 5,000 will support the U.S. Capitol Police.

Whitley said the need for the thousands of guards at the Capitol is due to potential threats flagged by the FBI around events taking place in the next two weeks that could draw large crowds. He did not elaborate on what those threats entail.

“So we have an adequate number of guardsman armed … we are relying on the intelligence from our federal partners, and if there needs to be a shift in our security posture, they will let us know and we will adjust accordingly,” said Commanding General of the D.C. National Guard, William J. Walker.

Meanwhile, Pentagon officials have announced that Lt. Gen. Charles Flynn, the younger sibling of former national security adviser Michael Flynn, is being assigned to head U.S. Army Pacific.

Under the new assignment, Flynn will be posted at the headquarters of the U.S. Army Pacific at Fort Shafter, Hawaii, where he will serve as commanding general.

The U.S. Army Pacific is the army component unit of the U.S. Indo-Pacific Command and provides oversight and control of Army operations in its area of responsibility, with the exception of the Korean Peninsula.

The Epoch Times noted in a Jan. 27 report that Flynn, along with other Pentagon staff, “faced scrutiny in recent days over the deployment of National Guard troops to the U.S. Capitol as a mob breached the building on Jan. 6. Washington city officials and the Capitol Police have alleged that the Pentagon was slow in responding to a request for help from the National Guard in quelling the riot.”

Flynn told The Washington Post he was in the room for several minutes during a call when local officials made the request for National Guard support.

Then-Capitol Police Chief Steven Sund, who has since resigned, told the Washington Post in a Jan. 10 interview that a top Army official on the call, later identified as Lt. Gen. Walter E. Piatt, the director of Army staff, said, “I don’t like the visual of the National Guard standing a police line with the Capitol in the background.”

Piatt, in a follow-up statement to the Post, denied making that statement during the call, while other Pentagon officials also denied that Piatt had expressed reservations about deploying the National Guard, members of which arrived several hours after the call to help secure the Capitol.

“I did not make the statement or any comments similar to what was attributed to me by Chief Sund in The Washington Post article—but would note that even in his telling he makes it clear that neither I, nor anyone else from DoD, denied the deployment of requested personnel,” Piatt told The Washington Post in the statement.


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